200 lines in a sale.

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200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Thu May 05, 2011 5:55 pm

I have been working on this so it now deserves its own topic.

As posted elsewhere I do have the test version of the program ringing up 200 lines in a sale. It also prints the receipts fine.

Today I wrote a program that will rewrite the old .REC file into the the new 200 lines format. For 10,000 stored sales the size of the .REC file will increase from 20 meg. to 120 meg. I have also changed to program write sales to the new .REC file and read them.

The next project it to work on the sale parking feature because you have to be able to park 200 lines per sale.

After that I will have the program save the descriptions to the .REC file.

Then a whole pile of testing before there is a release version.

This sure does sound simple, why is it so much work?

Dale

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by brucef2112 » Thu May 05, 2011 8:44 pm

Dale, sign me up for beta testing.

Is this going to be a configurable option? ie setup for max number of items for POS system.
If I know my store would never sell more than 30 individual items in a single sale can I set it and in turn save 100MB of storage.
If not, this new feature just ballooned backup of POS by 10 fold each day!

thx may i have another
Later,
Bruce

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin - Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Thu May 05, 2011 9:40 pm

Bruce,

Too many parts of the program have to be set for the maximum number of lines to make it optional. And then folks that picked 60 lines now would later decide that 120 lines would be better and then want the program to convert all old files to 120. You also have to remember that sticking all the descriptions into the .REC file alone would double the size. Even with just 60 lines the file would be 40M.

However you can still set the number of transactions to be recorded to 10, 100, 1000, or 10,000. 10,000 would be a 120M file while 1000 would be a 12M file.

Dale

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by brucef2112 » Thu May 05, 2011 9:43 pm

geee, you seem to know your lusers quite well. :)
Later,
Bruce

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin - Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by cpb14 » Fri May 06, 2011 7:49 am

Dales Beta testers unite lol

sign me up as usual

CB

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Fri May 06, 2011 6:43 pm

Bruce,

You are scum. But you are correct. Upon further review the program needs the option to allow either 60 or 200 lines in a sale. Folks with older computers with smaller hard drives would no longer be able to use the program even if they had no need for 200 lines in a sale. Not good. However they will not get off scot free. Since the descriptions will be "sticky" even for a limit of 60 lines they still need to go into the .REC file so it will still need to double in size. This means that for 10,000 stored sales with a 60 line limit the size of the .REC file will go from 19.6 meg to 42 meg. way better than 120 meg.

This would be so much easier if I did not want to do what is right.

Dale

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Fri May 06, 2011 6:56 pm

So where is the 200 line feature right now?

I have a conversion program that will convert the .REC file to the new format with either a 60 or 200 line limit. The POS program will read and write to the .REC file at either 60 or 200 lines. Descriptions are now "sticky" meaning that during a sale if you change a description on an item that when you use the "5. Void" to look up that sale that the changed description will be there, not the original one. If you reprint the receipt the changed description will be printed.

Still to do. I have done nothing with parked sales, they have to be 60 / 200 lines also. The program for selling gift cards and the one for tickets will not yet handle the new .REC file format. The conversion program needs to be able to convert new 60 to 200 and 200 to new 60. What I do have is not yet idiot proof. I have to go into the code to switch from 60 / 200 and it is still possible to screw up the .REC file beyond all hope of survival. But I am working on it and I may have something to test later tonight.

Dale

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by brucef2112 » Fri May 06, 2011 9:23 pm

Yeaaaa! I can tell my 486 it still has a purpose in its life! [I'll call theripist in the morning and cancel the appointment.]

After I posted above, I gave thought to the 10's of garage sale and flea market folks and those users in other world countries that would be edged out of upgrading to any future versions of DHPOS once it was 200 lines enabled just becuase of legacy hardware. I was just too tired to post back to plead their case.

I'm glad there will be a 60/200 choice. I would consider this a *major* feature right along with the saved discription feature. It sounds like you want to make the 60/200 a switchable back and forth option. Is this right? I would think it should be a one way conversion. 60 > 200. It should be a well thought out choice that a user determins they expect to have Days and Days with LOTS and LOTS of sales beyond 60 line items and therefore they need to purchase a 1TB drive and then flip the 200 switch. My thinking is, once they have the 1TB drive there is no reason to flip it back. If they find they were hasty in their choice to go 200, let them archive the current version and start with a fresh install @ 60. I think you'd save a ton of code time by going as a one way upgrade. This would be not much different than some of your version upgrades that are one-way upgrades and give the users fair warning about it.

I am sooo happy . :D :D :D After years of not upgrading since the X version I look forward to getting the latest with these features and fixes!

Dale, I hope the Data Gods are pleased with your choice to do the right thing and that they show mercy on you as you code this....

later,
b
Later,
Bruce

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin - Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Fri May 06, 2011 10:28 pm

Here is something to test. Follow these instructions if you want to live.

1. Make a backup of your POS folder, the whole thing. it must have version 7.05 or 7.05a in it.
2. Download http://www.dhpos.com/pos200c.zip to the new folder and unzip it.
3. Run the POS.EXE program.
4. After choosing the register file name (if you have multiple registers) you will end up in a strange place.
5. The strange place will ask you if you have made a backup of your .REC file. Answer YES since there will be a copy in your original folder.
6. The strange place will ask you if you if you want 60 or 200 maximum lines in a sale. Your choice. Do one now. Recopy your .REC and .POS files to the new folder later and pick the other option for another test.
7. You will now be sent back to the POS.EXE program and it should load normally.
8. Have fun with your new toy but there are a few things you must not do. No parking or unparking sales. Sell no gift cards or tickets.
9. Do everything else.
10. When Bruce pages back and forth in the "Voids" feature he should tell me this also dies for him.
11. You can tell the 60 option is different because the descriptions will be "sticky." Other than that you should not be able to tell a difference from 7.05.
12. The strange place is strange because I just threw the interface together so you would have something to test tonight. The release version will not be strange.
13. After converting you should also create a new register file just to see if you can. Test that.
14. After testing report back here.

Dale

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Fri May 06, 2011 10:38 pm

Bruce,

After you convert the .REC file once to 60 or 200 you will later be able to run it again to switch from 60 to 200 or from 200 to 60. This second reformatting has not yet been coded into the program.

If you switch from 60 to 200 the .REC file will just get bigger. If you switch from 200 to 60 then the file will get smaller but you will obviously lose all data in the sales from lines 61 to 200.

However in either case, when switching formats you will need to have enough free disk space to hold the new file before the old file is deleted and the new file is renamed.

Dale

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Sat May 07, 2011 7:37 pm

Well, fuzzbutt.

I put some test code into the RECONVRT.EXE program so that I would not have to type in the filename of KEYSHOP over and over again. I then cleverly forgot to remove it before I uploaded it into version 7.05b200. On the plus side it worked swell if the register name you are using was KEYSHOP, not so swell if the register name was anything else. So I fixed that and spent the day putting in a real interface in RECONVRT.EXE plus a few fixes in the POS.EXE file.

Here is the link for version 7.05c200 http://www.dhpos.com/pos200c.zip It only contains POS.EXE and RECONVRT.EXE so you will have to have all the rest of the files already in the backup folder.

Dale

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Thu May 12, 2011 8:00 pm

Today I did a lot of work on the 200 lines in a sale feature.

I now have the conversion program working over a network and it will now not only convert the .REC file but the sale parking lot also.

I modified the program that sells gift cards to save the sale to the new .REC file. It still needs some work though. However the limit on purchasing gift cards in one sale will remain at 30.

I still need to work on the conversion program so that it will be able to switch the new version of the .REC file between 60 or 200 lines per sale. The same parking lot is used for 60 or 200 lines.

I still need to modify the ticket program to use the new .REC file.

I still need to figure out how users are supposed to choose between 60 or 200 lines when creating a new register.

And when I finish all this it will need a lot of testing by you folks.

Dale

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Fri May 13, 2011 6:25 pm

I have finished the program that sells gift cards and the one that sells tickets.

I have finished with switching back and forth between 60 or 200 per sale.

I am thinking of letting the program always create a new register at 60 lines and then you must run the new RECONVRT.EXE program to switch it over to 200 lines per sale. What do you think?

Dale

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Sat May 14, 2011 6:29 pm

I have been threatening to give you all 200 possible lines per sale and “sticky” descriptions and I am now making good on that threat. Well as far as a beta-test version anyway. This was not quite as much fun as I had thought it would be but it made for that by being a crushing load of endless details that had to be accounted for.

I guess I should start by listing all the new features.

1. You can set the program to allow a maximum of 60 or 200 lines in a sale.
2. Descriptions are now “sticky” meaning that if you set the program to allow you to change the descriptions, when you use the “5. Voids” feature to recall the transaction the new descriptions will be there.

That’s it. So what have I been doing for 2 weeks? There are two files that are dependant on the number of lines in a sale, the .REC file that stores past transactions and the .PRK file where you can park uncompleted transactions. Both files have to be reformatted to hold the new data. This is true even if you want to remain at 60 lines per sale because the .REC file now has to store descriptions. This would have been much easier if I had made the program just dump your current .REC and .PRK files but I do not want you folks to force me to hide in a rain forest in Bolivia when you come to seek your revenge.

Therefore there is a new program file RECONVRT.EXE. When you run the POS.EXE program it will detect your old format files and automatically run the new program. The new program will convert your old files to the new format. You choose if you want 60 or 200 lines. Depending on the number of transactions your .REC file holds the program may require up to 120 megabytes of free disk space if you choose 200 lines. You will get some of that back when the conversion is done.

If you are running a network you will have to manually run RECONVRT.EXE on the GLOBAL register first. The .REC file is LOCAL but .PRK is GLOBAL. However, all the registers must be set to the same number of lines? If they are not, you will be continuously sent back to the RECONVRT.EXE program until they are. Do the GOBAL register first whenever you want to change between 60 or 200.

When you create a new register it will always be created with a line per sale limit of 60 lines. However if you run the RECONVRT.EXE program directly you will be offered a choice of converting between 60 or 200 lines. Whichever one you have set now you can convert to the other one. If you go from 60 to 200 no data will be lost but your .REC file will get HUGE. (The same .PRK file is used for either 60 or 200 lines, but it must be in the new format.)

NOTE: While you can have up to 200 lines in a normal sale the number of gift cards you can sell in a sale will remain at 30 and the number of tickets will remain at 60.

If you go from 200 to 60 lines then the .REC file will get much smaller but you obviously will loose the data for items in each sale in lines 61 to 200. If the sale did have more than 60 lines then the description in line 60 will be changed to “NEXT ??? LINES NOT SHOWN” with “???” being replaced with the number of lines. While the lines will be missing the total sale, taxes, etc. will be correct.

So what took so long? Well the program had to be able to detect if the .REC or .PRK files are in the old format and what to do if they are not. Do you have one but not the other, what if you have neither? Once the files were converted the POS.EXE, GIFTCARD.EXE, and THEATER.EXE had to be converted to handle the new formats at either 60 or 200 lines. They had to be taught to make descriptions “sticky.” If used over a network they had to be able to tell if the local register was set for the same number of lines as the global register. The RECONVRT.EXE program had to be able to convert not only to the new format but between 60 or 200 whenever desired and to be able to write up to 120 megabytes of flawless data. FUN!

It is now time for YOU to test this out. You absolutely want to make a backup of your current folder and test this there. Download (new file, see below) to the new folder and run it to unzip the files. The version is 7.05F200. Would you also please make a new folder and try this there to make a new register.

If I did this correctly this should be easy for you, the program will do all the work. Let me know.

Dale

BTW, since this is a 7.05 version it will also do 26,000 lines in the stock table.

PS: I just had a thought (hey, it happens.) Since the descriptions are now sticky, and you can have 200 of them in a sale, how about if you were allowed to use some of those descriptions to put a note in your sale? Here is the deal. When in a sale you press [INSERT] and a window will pop up. You type anything you want into the window and press [INSERT] again. Your text will be formatted to 24 characters per line and inserted into the next lines of descriptions needed to hold the text you entered. You can then go back to entering items into a sale. Something like this…

Code: Select all

Line Pieces    Description             Stock# Price Amount   Tax
  1    1     BIT-FLAT-DRILL/STEEL KEY   60009  5.99   5.99 9.75%
  2    2     COLOR KEY ONE SIDED        60000  2.99   5.98 9.75%
  3    0     ***THE FOLLOWING ITEMS         0  0.00   0.00 0.00%
  4    0     ARE BEING SHIPPED TO THE       0  0.00   0.00 0.00%
  5    0     CUSTOMER***                    0  0.00   0.00 0.00%
  6    1     30 KEY BOX                 52895 76.00  76.00 9.75%
  7    2     ACME SAFE                  85214 99.99  99.99 9.75$
Well, how about it?

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Re: 200 lines in a sale.

Post by daleadmin » Sat May 14, 2011 9:06 pm

The "note" feature went way quicker than I thought it would. However pressing [INSERT] will not work to activate it. Now what you have to do when ringing up items is press [CTRL] + [F12]. Now enter your text and press [ENTER] to put your text into the "description" column or press [ESC] to cancel.

You can type in 3 lines of 70 characters, or 210 characters. JUST KEEP TYPING and do not worry if you split a word at the end of one row and the beginning of another. The program will treat all 3 lines as one long sentence. However if you put in extra spaces to fill out a line they will be put into the description column.

Here is the new file (New file, see below) Only the POS.EXE program is 7.05g200 all the other files are still 7.05F200.

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